The Book Of My Life
by KingMobUK
Summary: Miles Edgeworth has a few days off work and ends up reflecting on his life. This is set shortly before 1:5 Rise From The Ashes on PW:AA. It can be read after Starting Over and Auld Lang Syne or on its own. Spoilers for PW:AA and PW:T&T 3:1.


Miles Edgeworth's reverie was disturbed by the February sun. Its tentative rays of light were pushing their way through the blinds that shaded his apartment windows. Pess was still curled up tightly at his feet on the sofa, exuding canine contentment from every pore.

Had he really been sitting here all night? Not that that would be so unusual, if he was completely honest. He'd often lost entire days just sitting in this room when working on a case, obsessively seeking the slightest contradiction or nuance in every witness statement and police report in order to be completely prepared in court. Perfection had been his goal for the longest time, and perfection had meant a tireless, constant, single-minded pursuit of the guilty that had eaten into his days, months, years with no respite. And until Wright had appeared opposite him in court, he'd never had cause to regret it.

Sleep, by contrast, was his enemy. In sleep lurked the nightmares that had stalked him since his father's death. And these days the nightmares had been joined by something that Miles found even more unsettling – self doubt. It was not a state of mind that he was accustomed to, and he found its presence at the back of his conscious thoughts both uncomfortable and frightening. Since his trial he'd become obsessed with his failure to see through the manipulations of Von Karma for all those years and now he found himself second-guessing almost every decision, trying to distinguish his own voice from that of his mentor's. On the heels of those thoughts followed doubts over his chosen career and the means he'd used to further it. It was easy to push away these concerns with work, and he had applied himself to that end within a day of being released from the Detention Centre.

But at the moment he did not have a case to work on. In the Prosecutor's Office and the Police Department there was a build up to the annual Evidence Filing Day, and most new cases were being scheduled to go to court after that date to ensure that existing resources were not too stretched. So Miles Edgeworth had found himself in the unusual position of having a few days off, precisely at a time when it was even less welcome than usual.

That first day, he'd actually gone into work. Frankly, at the moment he didn't really want to have too much time with nothing else to do but think. So he'd spent the day organising his office, clearing out old paperwork and rearranging and re-compiling all his files. Detective Gumshoe had assisted him. Miles had always had an irrational fear of heights and despite Von Karma's insistence on perfection at all costs, he had never overcome it completely. So Gumshoe had acted as his assistant; climbing the narrow, mobile ladder that tracked back and forth along the wall of shelves, spending the whole day taking down files and putting them back.

He'd been grateful for the company. Gumshoe never said much when they were together alone, but he never felt obliged to speak either, so it had been a peaceful day. He'd not been alone with his thoughts, but neither had he been plagued by inane conversation.

But like it or not, there had only been one day's work at the office, and despite his compulsion to get away from his thoughts, he wasn't about to go in and be the ghost at the feast when supposed to be on leave. He knew that most people regarded him as someone who lived for his work, but he was certainly not going to demonstrate to his colleagues just how true that actually was.

So he'd ended up staying at home, restlessly moving about in his apartment, playing with Pess, reading old law books, trying to find things to occupy his hands or his brain and keep the dark thoughts at bay. He'd considered going away for a couple of days but lacked a desired destination and was averse to aimless wanderings. Also, there was always the danger that Wright would report him as a missing person if he did that, he'd considered wryly. The defence attorney's attempts at unobtrusive checking-up on him the past month or so had not escaped Edgeworth's attention and he was half-exasperated, half-amused by it. Subtlety simply wasn't in Wright's repertoire, it seemed.

So he'd stayed at home, venturing out only for food or to take a walk with Pess. Since his trial there remained the danger that he'd be a target for press attention if he stepped too far out of his daily routine, and Miles preferred not to provoke any more scrutiny if he could possibly avoid it.

Clearing out his cupboards and closets had seemed like a good idea when he'd started it, and he'd gone to work with his customary zeal and thoroughness. He was habitually neat, a symptom of his compulsive need for perfection in all things, however minor. It was probably a fault, he reflected, but at least it provided him with an excuse to always have something to do.

Things had been going well, and he'd managed to kill the best part of a day by the time he started on the last cupboard in the hall. Pess had followed him from room to room with that mild canine curiousity that he usually exhibited when Miles was doing something that made no obvious sense.

Then he'd found the box.

He'd almost forgotten it was there, but once he saw it he remembered putting it in its current position on a high, back shelf, out of sight and almost out of reach, on the day that he had moved in. For years he'd regarded it as a sign of his weakness and had told himself he was ashamed of it. But he'd never felt able to part with it all the same, and when he'd moved back from Germany it had come with him.

Thoughtfully he hesitated over it, and then carried it back to the living room. He sat down on the white leather sofa and placed the box on the table in front of him, considering it, and the memories that it brought with it. Pess joined him on the sofa, obviously deciding that his human was exhibiting more sensible behaviour at last.

At some point he supposed he must have fallen asleep. Now, as sunlight continued to creep into the apartment, Edgeworth sat forward with sudden resolve. In his head, he could hear Von Karma's sneering voice accusing him of sentimental romanticism as he pulled the box towards him.

He ran his fingers over the aging wood, feeling where in places it was rubbed into an almost polished smoothness from fifteen years of handling. Carved into it in a childish but surprisingly neat hand was the legend TREASURE. He let his fingertips explore the edges of the now worn engraving and a smile caught at his lips as he remembered Larry Butz giving the box to him on his birthday all those years ago, with a look of pride in his eyes and the exclamation "Look Edgey - I made this myself!"

He remembered being awed then that someone his age could make something that looked so complex and simultaneously being embarrassed that they would make something like that for him. Larry had always been able to make anything or do anything if it involved skills of craft or mechanics.

He looked down at his own hands – well manicured, uncalloused and unmarked, save for a few healed paper cuts. He would never be able to make anything like this, had never made anything like this. The Von Karma search for perfection did not include mechanical or artistic tasks. Those were things that one could pay someone else for, someone … inferior.

He remembered that birthday well. It had been a happy day. His father had taken them all to the mall for lunch and then to see a movie. The novelty of Miles having friends to share his birthday with had made everything seem even more special. He and his father had moved often, and he'd always been a shy child. Had his moral outrage not overcome his reticence to speak up in defence of Phoenix Wright at the class trial, he would likely have passed that year at a new school without friends.

After they got home from the mall, he had sat on the porch with Phoenix Wright and Larry Butz, laughing, opening presents and drinking chilled lemonade that his father had made. He remembered the fresh-baked cookies that Wright's mother had sent – no doubt partly out of sympathy for the boy with no mother of his own, but delicious all the same.

Edgeworth glanced up at his bookcase and his sharp eyes picked out a slim, tattered volume on the history of common law that was tucked away high on the top shelf. He remembered unwrapping that book and looking up with a smile to see Wright watching him apprehensively, unsure of his choice. It had been second hand, of course – Wright's allowance would never have stretched to a new copy and as it was, Edgeworth had suspected that several weeks' pocket money had been put aside to buy it.

Then Butz had presented the box. Like the book, it was now somewhat battered. A selection of scratches and dints covered it, each one telling part of the story of its life and to some extent, of his own. It was chipped on one corner where he'd dropped it while trying to retrieve it from a high shelf in his bedroom. The fine marks on the bottom were from the grit on the wooden floor under his bed in the Von Karma house. Another deep scratch had been inflicted during a fight with his stepsister when the box had been the recipient of her considerable ire. And then there was a whole array of overlapping scuffs and chips that had built up during the constant packing and unpacking that the box had undergone through school and college.

Carefully he gripped the box between his knees and eased off the always-tight lid. It made a protesting squeak as he jiggled it in an unconscious memory of the easiest way to complete the task. It surprised him how easily he remembered.

Placing the lid to one side, he cast his eye over the contents. The smell of ink and paper mingled with the smell of old sawdust and he inhaled it deeply and closed his eyes, just as he had many times before. Memories stirred of past times that he had done exactly this. The box seemed smaller in his adult hands than it did in some of those recalled scenes. It was fuller, too – its contents had grown over the years.

He pulled out the tightly packed jumble of envelopes that were crammed inside. Most of them were unopened and some had the address crossed and re-crossed, having been at the mercy of the postal forwarding system. They were in a variety of sizes and styles, with differing values of stamps according to their age and the distance they had travelled. He weighed them in his hands just as he had when he received them, puzzled now as he was then why someone would go to this trouble month after month and year after year for no apparent reward.

He hesitated over one that was open, then pulled out the carefully folded, lined notepaper within. Opening it out, he noted that the paper still smelled lightly of a perfume that reminded him of his own mother, although he knew it belonged to someone else. The untidy and unchanged handwriting was entirely familiar, as was the signature.

He didn't reread the letter because he knew what it said. Day to day news written cheerily, but carefully; haltingly expressed friendship; an underlying feeling of hurt and concern in the variations of ink pressure. He knew what they all said, even the ones he hadn't opened, but had just carried to his room and filed away in the treasure box. He didn't even really know why he'd kept them, he just knew that he had to, that he had never been able to shred them and forget them. They had been his only link to what had gone before. Somehow, keeping them but not giving in to the temptation to read or reply had seemed an adequate compromise between weakness and perfection when he was a child, and as he had become an adult, it had simply become a routine.

He tried to imagine Wright painstakingly writing these letters each month with no real knowledge of whether they reached their destination, or whether Miles even read them. He wondered if a reply had been expected and hoped for. He wondered if Wright had realised how much he had treasured these letters, even unread, or if he suspected that they still existed.

Carefully Edgeworth began to replace them in the box, making neat rows, organised by date.

Thrown in among the pile of letters were two photographs. He placed them on the table side-by-side until he'd finished filing the envelopes. Then he turned his attention to them.

The first was of his father, in black and white, smiling for the camera. Taken in his office, surrounded by papers and with his glasses pushed up onto his forehead. Miles remembered that picture being taken, by a newspaper journalist who was doing a story on Gregory Edgeworth, the great defence attorney. He remembered conquering his childish shyness to ask the journalist if he could have a copy. He remembered receiving it in the mail and being delighted that the woman had sent it. His father had just laughed and said it was a bad likeness, but to Miles, then, it was a treasure that summed up his life and hopefully his future.

The second was of three boys, in colour, with rough edges where it had been torn from a strip. Was that really him? He and Wright were squeezed onto the front of one of those photo booth stools on the day of his birthday, with Larry balancing precariously on his knees behind. His mouth twitched into a smile as he remembered that moment and the instant afterward when Larry had lost his balance and they had all collapsed in a heap while the final FLASH caught a tumble of limbs and feet. He shook his head. Larry hadn't changed at all.

Edgeworth slotted the two pictures among the letters and pushed the box away from him across the small table.

He sat back, pulled up his legs and rested his head against the soft leather of the sofa, absent-mindedly stroking Pess' head. Closing his eyes, he wondered if he would ever be able to explain to Wright why he had never replied to any of those letters, or why he still kept them. Probably not. He wasn't entirely sure himself – it seemed completely irrational to him even now – as irrational as Wright continuing to send them in the first place. He was certainly not going to admit to keeping the mall photograph, although seeing the matching image on Wright's keyring the day after his trial had almost prompted the confession out of him.

On an impulse Miles sat forward and flicked through the letters again with his forefinger, selecting one from nearer the end of the batch of correspondence. He particularly remembered receiving this one as it was the only one he'd opened in the last few years.

_Dear Miles,_

_Things are not going so well here. There was a murder on campus and I was accused of being the killer. __I didn't do it!!__ but it looked bad for me for a while. I think if you had been the prosecutor I would have been writing this from jail. _

_I'm free now but my life is over. People are saying that my beautiful Dollie may have been involved. I don't know what to believe any more. As you know from my past letters I loved her very much and I thought she might be "Mrs Wright". But it looks as if she might have been deceiving me all the time._

_I feel like an idiot. I have been too ashamed to talk to anyone and have been spending more time in the law library than in class. I'm glad that I can write to you about this. Even if you never read it, I will feel better knowing that I told you …_

Miles didn't read any further but half-folded the letter and let the edge of it rest against his lips as he mused on it thoughtfully, grey eyes half-lidded.

Finally he replaced it in its envelope and pushed himself up from the sofa. Maybe there was a reason Wright had written these letters after all. Crossing the room, he sat down at the mahogany desk. Pess watched him silently, clearly wondering why the day's routine did not appear to be going as normal.

The prosecutor picked out a sheet of stiff, burgundy edged paper and placed it in front of him, then reached for his fountain pen. He paused, and put the pen down again, realising that he didn't really know where to start. The only letters he had ever written outside of work or business had been to his stepfather and stepsister, and even those had always been semi-formal. He almost laughed imagining either of their reactions at being confronted with Wright's tortured prose and he could feel Manfred Von Karma's glowering disapproval at his back as he picked up his fountain pen for the second time and started to write.

_Dear Phoenix,_

_I regret that it has taken so long to reply to your letters. Unfortunately I cannot give you a satisfactory reason for never having done so before._

He winced at his apparent inability to sound informal, but pressed on, unwilling to be defeated by a simple letter.

_I think that by now you understand the events that occurred after we last spoke outside my father's home that Christmas. I hope that knowing those facts you may understand why I was never able to write back to you, perhaps even better than I do._

_Things are not going so well here …_

Miles continued to write for several hours. He surprised himself at how easy it became once he'd started. He stopped for breakfast, to take Pess for a walk, and to take a shower, but the letter was on his mind all the time and he returned to it immediately afterwards.

He wrote about his father, his life in Germany, his stepsister, his time at University and law school and his first, ill-starred trial as a prosecutor. He wrote about how he blamed himself for being so easily manipulated by his mentor. He tried to explain his decision to become a prosecutor, and how his desire for retribution and a perfect win record had driven him to use every underhanded trick he could to get a conviction. Finally he tried to explain his fear that he would never again be able to distinguish which thoughts came from his own head and which were from Von Karma's, and how he wondered if it would be better for him to start his life over again somewhere else where he was unknown and could do no further harm.

By mid-afternoon he was done. Miles put down his pen and gathered up the pages feeling slightly embarrassed at the sheer amount of writing that he had produced. He was quite sure he hadn't written this much since University.

He sat back and picked up the china cup of tea that perched on the edge of the desk, grimacing and putting it back down when he realised it had long gone cold. He sighed and pulled himself out of the leather chair, stretching cramped muscles carefully and shaking his writing hand to encourage his circulation.

For the remainder of the afternoon he busied himself with household tasks, keeping his eyes averted from the letter that sat on his desk and threatened to expose his fears and doubts to the world. Finally, he admitted defeat, walked over and picked up the pile of papers.

For a moment he held the letter between his thumb and forefinger, then he dropped it into the shredder. _You were wrong, Wright. I don't feel any better_. With a sigh, he threw himself down on the sofa next to Pess and challenged the dark thoughts to do their worst.

-----

_There are promises broken and promises kept_

_Angry words that were spoken, when I should have wept_

_There's a chapter of secrets, and words to confess_

_If I lose everything that I possess_

_There's a chapter on loss and a ghost who won't die_

_There's a chapter on love where the ink's never dry_

_There are sentences served in a prison I built out of lies._

_- Sting_


End file.
